September 10, 2022

VEGAN RECIPE REVIEW: Chocolate Pudding


When I became vegan in January, I had no idea the world of foods out there that I would soon be eating. The recipes that I'd be trying. The ingredients that would become staples in my kitchen. The most surprising to me was tofu--I always thought of it as "weird vegetarian food". I'm open to trying anything, and it almost felt like a vegan rite of passage that I give tofu a try!

I didn't know there were so many different types of tofu or that it was so versatile. It was the lemon pepper tofu that made me fall in love with the ingredient, and wanting to try more more more. After making that, I couldn't understand how it would be used in a dessert--the texture just didn't seem dessert-like.

Then I was enlightened to the fact that silken tofu has a completely different texture than the extra-firm tofu blocks I'd been buying and pressing. So, I bought some silken tofu on Amazon. The main difference, other than the texture, is that silken tofu has a long shelf-life and you can keep it in your pantry for months. That sounded very convenient to have on hand.


However, once it arrived (12 packages of it!), I put it in my pantry and it sat there for probably the last two months. I just wasn't sure what to do with it. I knew that at some point, I wanted to try making a tofu scramble (similar to scrambled eggs) because it just seemed unbelievable to me and I thought there was no way it could taste good. I like proving myself wrong when making assumptions. Also, I noticed that a lot of vegan desserts call for silken tofu.

Today was the day I finally decided to pick a couple of recipes and give it a try. I chose a savory recipe (tofu scramble) and a dessert (chocolate pudding). I'll write about the scramble next week because I was excited to post this one--to spoil the ending, I have to say that I am blown away by this chocolate pudding! It's SO good.

First, a note about the texture of silken tofu: I had a hard time coming up with a food to describe the texture of silken tofu; the closest thing I can think of would be a hard boiled egg white. A lot more jiggly than the pressed tofu I was used to. There are different firmnesses; I chose the extra firm silken tofu just because I thought the texture would be more appealing than really soft stuff. (I also choose extra firm regular tofu)

When looking at recipes, I really don't like it when the recipe says something like, "You would never know that this is tofu and not chicken!" Because, well, I *do* know. It's not the same. It's certainly delicious (many times), but I'm happy to eat "orange tofu" instead of "vegan orange chicken"--even though it's the same recipe and those are just buzzwords, I'm not going to tell someone that you would never be able to tell the difference between chicken and tofu. No matter how it's cooked. (But feel free to prove me wrong!)

However. I'm making this bold statement after trying this chocolate pudding: If I didn't tell you that this pudding was made out of silken tofu, you probably would have no idea it was any different from pudding made with cow's milk. Yes, I am stating that--but feel free to tell me if I'm wrong after you've tried it ;) 

The craziest thing is that it only has four ingredients (not including a little water). You don't have to cook anything and it takes less than three minutes to prepare.

The recipe I followed was for Vegan Chocolate Pudding (or Whipped Silken Tofu) from Traditional Plant Based Cooking. There are a lot of recipes out there that are very similar, though--this was just one of the first ones I found. (I'll link to it again at the end of the post)

The ingredients: silken tofu, cocoa powder, maple syrup, and vanilla extract. (Plus a couple of tablespoons of water)


The "cooking" process? Just put all the ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth (scraping down the sides of the blender as needed to make sure it's very smooth).


Boom--done. Chocolate pudding that tastes a million times better than the packaged stuff and definitely rivals homemade chocolate pudding made with cow's milk. (I added some vegan chocolate chips on top so it didn't look so plain)


The recipe says to refrigerate for an hour, but I ate some right away to taste it before putting it in the fridge. I couldn't believe how good it was! I really wanted Eli to try it, because he's the one in the family that is very resistant to "weird" ingredients like tofu.

Noah has been very open to trying vegan recipes and he frequently chooses to eat vegan food versus animal-based products now. Just yesterday, we made homemade personal pizzas and Jerry and I topped ours with some caramelized onions and fried tofu. Noah chose to do that with his pizza too, rather than the pepperoni and cheese that Eli put on his own.

The cocoa powder that I used was Dutch processed dark chocolate powder (I'm not sure if the regular kind would taste the same; the recipe didn't specify what kind to use). Noah loves dark chocolate, and when I gave him a spoonful of the pudding to try, he said, "Wow, that's REALLY good! What's in it?" And when I told him that it's made out of tofu, he was completely stunned.

Eli has never been a fan of dark chocolate, but said he'd try the pudding anyway (I love my kids!). He didn't ask what was in it, and I was glad because I wanted his honest opinion before I told him it was tofu. He said that it was good, but he would like it better if it wasn't dark chocolate. His face was so funny when I told him it was tofu--he was in disbelief.

And Jerry? Same reaction. He *loves* tofu but he said he never would have guessed the pudding was made with it. All four of us agreed that we would never know the difference between it and pudding made with cow's milk.

This is absolutely going to be a go-to when I'm craving something sweet and chocolatey but I don't want to bake (haha, I never want to bake!).

I made a tofu scramble for lunch today, and I'll save my thoughts on that for next week :)

Again, here is a link to the recipe for this chocolate pudding: Vegan Chocolate Pudding (or Whipped Silken Tofu) from Traditional Plant Based Cooking

3 comments:

  1. Yep. We're gonna have to try this one! Thank you.

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  2. I used to make a vegan chocolate pie by blending silken tofu with melted vegan chocolate chips in a food processor, and putting it in a pie crust and refrigerating it. I think I got it from an old PETA cookbook, called "Please Don't Eat the Animals." There was also a very good stuffing recipe in that book that we liked for Thanksgiving.

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  3. I have an egg allergy, and someone once made me a pumpkin pie using tofu instead of pumpkin. The texture was so incredibly offputting that I have never tried tofu as an egg replacement again, it honestly made me gag from the texture and that has just stuck with me for so long. But this might be enough to make me give it a go again. Its possible that single dish just wasn't made right (wrong kind of tofu, wrong bake time/temp, etc) and that other desserts would be better.

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